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Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Over at Kotaku, Luke Plunkett has an interesting post up on the sort of conflict of interest some gaming journalists and websites face when penning honest reviews of video games.

To briefly summarize, long, long ago in a galaxy far away (called simply The Year of Our Lord 2007) a writer at GameSpot, Jeff Gerstmann, was fired. This came closely on the heels of his negative review of Kane & Lynch. Rumors that the publisher had applied pressure on GameSpot to get rid of Gerstmann ran rampant, and, it turns out, were all (mostly) true.

Though the publisher may not have actually applied the pressure, it turns out higher-ups at GameSpot were none too pleased with Gerstmann when Sony threatened to pull advertising over the review.

"As part of a recent deal that's seen Gerstmann's current employer Giant Bomb purchased by CBS Interactive (who also own GameSpot, his former employer), some full disclosure was needed from both parties as to what, exactly, went down that day five years ago," Plunkett writes.

"So disclose Gerstmann has, confirming with GameSpot's Jon Davison that after a succession of challenges with management and advertisers he was "called into a room" and "terminated" because he "couldn't be trusted" as editorial director (ie, in charge of reviews), kicking off one of the saddest and sorriest episodes in an often sad and sorry relationship between games writers and games publishers."

Sad indeed, and revelatory, too. As perhaps the most blatant possible way to illustrate a conflict of interest between gaming sites and publishers, terminating someone who gives a game a bad review isn't just a terrible idea, it's an ethical failure so poignant and grotesque that, as Plunkett says, one has a difficult time getting that bitter taste off the tongue just reading about it five years later.

I've been talking a lot lately about building trust between brands and audiences, and the importance of maintaining consumer trust for game developers. The ongoing Mass Effect saga is a lovely vehicle for this discussion. But a larger problem exists within gaming journalism, and certainly the GameSpot affair illustrates this in gritty detail.

While I'm still only digging into the details here, other instances of games and access being withheld to sites that hand out negative reviews have been reported.

Often the most pernicious form conflict of interest takes is the kind that bubbles about just below the surface, barely visible even to its participants. Sometimes all it takes is an amicable relationship between a game publisher and a journalism outfit. The fear of stepping on the toes of those you like and admire can be as debilitating as the fear of biting the hand that feeds you.

I've seen this same thing in political journalism. Real hard-hitting journalism is often discouraged by closing off access to journalists who won't accept the official line. That access is precious, but often as not journalists don't even think of it that way. They build friendships with the subjects of their reporting.

Glenn Greenwald has described these insider journalists as "desperate worshipers of political power who are far more eager to be part of it and to serve it than to act as adversarial checks against it" who are "Royal Court Spokespeople regardless of which monarch is ruling."

Trust is formed between the reporter and the subject, but that trust can come at a cost.

When this conflict of interest shatters the far more important trust that ought to exist between journalist and audience, well then Houston, we have a problem.